A Reflection of Power; Beijing is interfering more and more deeply in Hong Kong affairs.

Byline: Frank Ching (Ching, a political commentator and university lecturer, is the author of "Hong Kong and China: For Better or for Worse.")

With mainland China moving to embrace capitalism, "one country, two systems" should mean that Hong Kong and the mainland are different politically. And the way to ensure Hong Kong's distinctness is to allow the people of the city to choose their own leaders. Looking over the past decade, there have been obvious instances of interference in Hong Kong's domestic affairs, often with the city's leaders looking the other way to avoid provoking Beijing.

Due to a lack of transparency, it is often difficult to tell whether decisions are made in Hong Kong or Beijing. For example, there was the case of the newspaper proprietor Sally Aw, whom the Independent Commission Against Corruption charged as a co-conspirator in a fraud case. The Justice Department decided to drop charges against her. Aw was a member of China's top advisory body at the time.

Outright interference can also be documented. In 2000, the pro-independence candidate Chen Shui-bian won the Taiwan presidential election. The repercussions were felt in Hong Kong; high Chinese officials warned Hong Kong journalists not to report pro-independence news, saying it was the media's duty to "defend the sovereignty and integrity of the country," and warned Hong Kong business people not to deal with pro-independence Taiwanese. The Hong Kong government showed no will to resist such pressure.

Three years later, the impending passage of a law to criminalize subversive behavior brought well over half a million people onto the streets. Dissatisfaction with both Beijing and the Hong Kong authorities was palpable and brought with it cries for full democracy in the new elections, scheduled for 2007-2008. In the aftermath, China decided to crack down.

The following April, the standing committee of China's national legislature took action. It ruled out full democracy in 2007 and 2008 and issued an interpretation of the Basic Law, Hong Kong's Beijing-enacted mini-Constitution, saying that Hong Kong could not decide on its own when to elect the entire legislature through universal suffrage. Currently, only half the legislators are directly elected; the others are chosen through ...